The telephone network's primary service has been to provide Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS), which involves the establishment of telephone connections between two users. Another category of services is operator services (OS), although these are typically provided less frequently.
The category of operator services originally referred to services provided by a human operator, but with current automation, many operator services are now provided by automated systems, without necessarily involving the caller interacting with a human. Callers requesting an operator can do so by dialing “0” without any further digits or numbers (this dialing procedure is abbreviated as “0−”). In the past, callers could also access a human operator by prefixing a “0” to the number being dialed (abbreviated as “0+”). Originally, human operators handled a variety of requests and provided various services, but very soon their functions were segregated. For example, many years ago, directory assistance (DA) services were initially obtained by the caller dialing 0−. Subsequently, special numbers for DA calls were defined so as to facilitate segregation of these types of calls. Thus, DA calls are now identified by special telephone numbers e.g., “411” or “555-1212”. DA services are now largely automated, as are most other operator services. However, DA calls are still considered within the umbrella of operator services and calls to 411 can be considered an operator services call.
There are various other operator services. Other operator services include alternate billing services (ABS), which are now automated and commonly known as “calling card” services. ABS calls require the caller to enter a billing number identifying an account for which the call is to be billed (as opposed to traditionally billing the call to the account associated with the originating telephone number). Other operator services, such as station-to-station or person-to-person calling have been automated to an extent. These services may involve a call completion (CC) operator which controls the completion of the call to the destination party.
The provision of operator services was traditionally performed by the Local Exchange Carrier (LEC) on behalf of its local telephone customers. Thus, each LEC would typically have work centers staffed with operators dedicated to certain services, such as DA or CC type services. The advent of new technology allows the operators to be physically spread apart, but collectively, they may still be considered as a logical work group. Other work groups may be defined to handle calls for other related telecommunication services, such as repair related issues, customer service, payment, etc.
With the separation of local telephone carriers from inter-exchange carriers (IECs or IXCs), operator services were provided both by the LECs and IECs. Although the scope of services provided was limited to the customers of the respective LEC or IXC, it was recognized that increased efficiencies could be obtained by allowing services to be ‘outsourced.’ In other words, the technology and staff associated with providing operator services for one carrier could be used to provide services for another carrier. Thus, the infrastructure, technology, and staff used to provide a particular capability for a first carrier or service provider could be expanded and form the basis of an operator service that could be sold to a second carrier or other service providers. In this manner, other service providers could provide the same sophisticated operator services without the required large capital investments for the facilities, technologies, and staff.
Wireless service providers (WSPs) are one example of service providers for which this arrangement was attractive. Originally, many WSPs started with small subscriber bases dispersed in various locations. WSPs desired to provide various types of operator services for their subscribers, but at the same time desired to avoid the capital outlay required to do so. Thus, WSPs would frequently ‘contract out’ such services on behalf of their mobile subscribers. Other service providers, including wireline providers (such as competitive LECs-CLECs), would contract out services as well.
However, Operator Service Providers (OSPs) typically cannot customize the operator services for any particular purchaser of operator services. By way of illustration, if LEC “A” provides an operator service (such as DA) to two service providers (e.g., WSP “B” and WSP “C”), then the same exact DA service will be provided to the callers of both service providers. In many cases, a WSP “A” may desire custom feature or ‘branding’ (e.g., a short announcement provided to the caller announcing the service) in order to distinguish it from WSP “B”. This allows a WSP to provide unique features for their subscribers. Further, from the caller's perspective, unique features or branding appears as if their WSP has the sophistication to directly provide such services.
The technology used to implement operator services is complex and difficult to change. Any modifications to an operator service switch requires the switch vendor to develop new software, which is a time consuming and expensive. Typically, because there are different vendors involved, the different vendors' equipment must interwork to properly accomplish a new or modified service, and coordination of the development of a new capability is further complicated. To date, the ability of operator services providers to customize service operation, whether for the own operation or for providing the service to other carriers, is complicated and expensive.
Therefore, systems and methods would be desirable to facilitate the provision of custom operator services and/or features to callers of an operator services provider.